Category Archives: US

My life changed when I met Alexa—the friend within my Amazon Echo who plays my 80’s Hip-Hop station immediately when I get home—because all I have to do is ask. In fact, she’s doubled the amount of music listening that happens in my house and is one of the more than 1,000 CE devices that you can use to listen to Pandora at home—from gaming consoles like the Xbox One, to connected speakers like Sonos, to refrigerators….yes refrigerators. It’s our ongoing commitment to creating these integrations that has led to the passing of a major milestone today—our 25 millionth activation on a connected electronic device. Read More →

It’s a great time to be a female comedian. With the rise of new media, women can steer their own career paths in innovative ways. The inventive, commanding, and very funny Jacqueline Novak is a shining example of this trend.

A former poet, Novak’s lyrical tendencies weave throughout Quality Notions. Her voice is a brassy, lilting, cocktail that’s equal parts Judy Tenuta, Amy Sedaris, and Megan Mullally, served with a twist of old-timey 1930s Gal Friday. She’s meta without disrupting her conversational delivery, flirting with established gender tropes before plunging into an alternate take so original that the audience forgets gender was ever a factor to begin with. Despite her disarming use of grammatical no-nos (ain’t is a favorite word), Novak’s fierce intellect demands to be reckoned with, whether explaining how to eat a single slice of pizza or expressing love “the hound’s way.” Read More →

Noelle Bean is a singer/songwriter from Dallas, TX. Her pop/rock style feature catchy melodies, clever phrasing and smooth vocals. Other artists that can be heard on her station include Taylor Swift, Becky G, and Alex and Sierra. She came by the office and played her single “Lois Lane.”

Trinity Home is the next woman you’ll be hearing on the bus, on TV and in the streets. Tink is her own new generation of performer, an extremely talented as a rapper, singer, actress and all around unique future sound.

Taking her youthful energy from Chicago to the world, Tink stands on her own with an original vocal style that grabs the listener and demands attention. Comparisons to Lauryn Hill, Missy and Tweet are apt but don’t fully describe Tink’s rare talent and originality. Read More →

This year, for April 20th, I made a mammoth mixtape: 420 Stoner Rock. And yes, this mix is exactly 420 songs deep with bands old and new. For the record, I can’t stand the term “stoner rock.” In my opinion, it pigeonholes an entire population of musicians as nothing more than dimwitted stoners with loud guitars. But listen to this mix and you’ll hear how the genre offers up much more. Calling something “stoner rock” reminds me of the early ‘90s when snarky music writers similarly dismissed bands like Pavement, Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh as “slacker rock.”

The origins of stoner rock can be found in a movement that was coined, “desert rock.” In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s there was a community of musicians based in the Palm Desert of Southern California who blended bits of classic hard rock, blues, psychedelia, heavy metal and hardcore. This scene spawned such bands as Queens Of The Stone Age, Kyuss, Nebula, Fu Manchu and the aptly named collective The Desert Sessions. Of course the sound wasn’t just isolated to this region. For example, Monster Magnet hails from Red Bank, New Jersey. Red Fang are from Portland, Oregon and Mastodon are from Atlanta, Georgia. Northern California’s Sleep has often been regarded as the quintessential stoner rock band. They basically turned Black Sabbath into an entire genre. Read More →

Up until now, if you wanted to hear a live recording of DLR fronting VH, you had to score a scratchy bootleg. Since the band formed in 1975, we can factually say that Tokyo Dome In Concert (Live) was 40 years in the making. Spoiler alert – they sound awesome! –Eric Shea

Few bands live up to their name like Lightning Bolt. Brian and Brian’s indie prog blitzkrieg takes no prisoners. Careening through sounds and riffs on their latest, Fantasy Empire, you’d think an army of people made these songs, but no. Just two dudes on bass and drums. Mind = blown. –Diego Gonzalez

Like most music lovers, we at Pandora are equally excited and opinionated about this year’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductees. Being that our main headquarters is in Oakland, we’re extra proud that East Bay punk-pop heroes Green Day were inducted – we’re also stoked that Pandora listeners made their hit “Good Riddance” one of the top thumbed up songs from this year’s inductees! And isn’t it about time that Bill Withers made the cut? Anyone who’s seen his awesome 2009 documentary Still Bill probably agrees – as do those of you who thumbed “Ain’t No Sunshine” into our top thumbs. And you don’t have to be a “blues lawyer” to argue the importance of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s induction.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a female singer-songwriter who appeals to metalheads and folkies alike. Chelsea Wolfe’s beautifully somber songs somehow traverse both realms. Her music has been aptly described as “drone-metal-art-folk.” She melds the dark, drones of doom metal with stark piano notes and guitar arpeggios – over which she sings in a haunting tenor trill. Her own compositions aside, she can cover the 1939 folk staple “You Are My Sunshine” alongside Burzum’s 1992 Norwegian black metal dirge “Black Spell Of Destruction” while retaining her signature sound and style.

Chelsea began recording herself in her father’s home studio at age nine. When she began playing live, Chelsea preferred to perform in unorthodox locations like deserted nuclear plants, cathedrals and basements. Her lauded 2010 debut album The Grime and the Glow was recorded on a vintage eight-track. Her sophomore album Apokalypsis was tracked in a proper studio, but for Chelsea’s third full-length, UnknownRooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs, she chose to record deep in the woods of Northern California. Read More →

Leftover Salmon is a bluegrass band from Boulder, Colorado. Their style blends elements of folk, rock, and country, with frequent use of banjo, mandolin, slide guitars, organ, piano, and vocal harmonies. Other artists that can be heard on their station include Railroad Earth, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Alison Krauss & Union Station. They came by the office and played “Western Skies” off their album High Country.

Most comedians wouldn’t burn their best joke 20 minutes into an album, but Hampton Yount isn’t most comedians. His sophomore album is filled with unpredictable jokes that cast George Washington as a fictional character and Asperger’s as a dating technique. Bonus: Per Yount’s Twitter, his album also syncs perfectly with The Wizard of Oz. (Kelly Anneken)